Out of the Ashes
by Dakyu
Summary: Never forget who you are, Zuko...not even for a second...


Fire burned, the heavens cried, and Zuko could only kneel over in pain.

It was a strange situation, really. There had always been stories of two brothers on opposing sides who had to fight each other: everyone in the fire nation was aware of those old classics. But the young fire bender doubted that there were any stories of a brother being exiled and his sister…his _younger_ sister, no less, defeat him in so few moves as to be pathetic.

Azula's amber eyes laughed at him, the rain drizzling around them flowing in reflected waterfalls of her eyes. "Already over, Zuzu?"

"Don't call me that…" he instinctively retorted, but cringed in pain and fell back down to his knee.

"Oh, come now, Zuzu, you can't tell me that a little lightning blast already bested you?" She danced around slightly as she spoke, her taunt coating her words distastefully that worsened the guilt and shame already present in Zuko's heart.

The metal brig around them thundered, despite its doused engines and lack of motion. No, this was no man-created sound; it was the sky complaining of the pact of blood being broken.

It was, among the sound of the pounding rain on metal, the sound of their clashing souls.

Azula snickered again. "You're so pathetic, Zuko…challenging our father, challenging your place as servant to our nation…" she chided.

Zuko said nothing, rain dripping from his short hair and into his eyes to mix with the tears now beginning to escape his eyelids.

"I don't think I'll ever understand you…father exiled you for a reason, you know. And it WASN'T to find the avatar…"

"And what reason…" he gasped, had still clutching his burned side, "is that?"

"Just like the generation before us, little Zuzu, the throne is not going to go to the first born child," she sneered. She was still perfectly fine, even now. Her body was unmarked despite his trying to burn her with every technique he knew; even her hair had somehow remained up and un-messed.

He should have known this. On some level, he had already known, but it still didn't prevent more tears from falling and wrenching his heart in two.

"I'm gonna be the queen of the _world_!" she cackled, dancing gaily about. "And you're not gonna get ANY of it, Zuzu…it's going to be all MINE!"

Zuko said nothing.

"I wonder what you will do?" she wondered aloud, the taunt still thick in her voice. "Maybe go off and go hide in a hole? Go and marry some earth kingdom girl? Oh, now THAT would be a sight to see…"

Zuko's arm rested on his knee with a squelch of wet clothing, steam from evaporating rain beginning to rise about his body.

"Or maybe even an air bender…oh wait," she said in mock horror, "I forgot, they're all extinct!"

His eyes closed in concentration, his legs straining to move.

"I suppose you'll go down in history as one of the WEAKEST princes in the history of our nation…no, THE weakest…"

He rose.

"Oh? You want more?" She laughed. "Little Zuzu, you took a direct hit from my lightning…no one can fight after that…"

"I thought you said it was a 'little lightning'…" Zuko smirked wryly.

She huffed, then took on a fighting stance once again. "If you want me to crush you again, all you had to do…" she curled her arms, lightning dancing up and down their lengths, "WAS SAY SO!"

A blast of fire's true form erupted from her fingertips, shooting right towards Zuko.

_Go with the flow! If you make a path, the energy will follow it…_

Zuko held out one hand and he felt the power surge into him. For a brief moment, however unlengthy it might have been, he felt immortal.

_So this is what it was like…to be strong?_

He felt the power flow into his abdomen as his uncle had always instructed him to do, then up into his other arm and back out through his fingertips.

Azula, flabbergasted that her ultimate strike could be absorbed like that, had almost no time to block, and the blast sent her reeling backwards and slam into the side of the main doors into the lower sections of the boat.

Zuko opened his eyes, a new fire of life blazing in them. "There will _be_ no heir to the throne…"

Arms fanned out, fingertips spread wide, and fire began to lick about his body, eventually engulfing his entire body. His eyes still blazed. Not hatred or any sort of emotion…no, it was power in its truest form.

The fire turned blue, while a great bird's head rose above his own. The fire about his body spread out into wings, his body disappearing into the entirety of the firestorm.

Steam was rampant now, rain could not touch him, nor would he allow it to. He was Zuko, nothing more, and nothing less.

"Rest."

_Never forget who you are…_

"I won't…mother…"

Another single tear fell down his face, dripping off his chin to evaporate instantly in the flames. As Azula screamed, a viewer might have seen what looked like a giant bird of fire rip apart a ship, its form disappearing as the ship itself exploded.

The bird's dying scream, however, was nothing compared to his own crying heart.


End file.
